A Kajiado teacher is nursing injuries at Kajiado County Referral Hospital after he was attacked by a hungry hyena on Valentine’s day.
John Matipei, 42, disclosed to a local daily the painful experience he went through battling the beast for almost an hour.
The Emukutun Primary School deputy head teacher, narrated that he had returned home from a distant school he teaches to reunite with his wife.
Shortly, he left to attend to his goats at around 5 pm in the evening.
While he was fetching water for the animals, he was attacked by the beast which bit his thigh and swallowed the flesh.
“I kicked it but it did not let go. When I turned around, it landed on my chest and faced me directly,” Matipei recalled.
To save his life, he had to bite the hyena on the nose!
“That is when I bit its nose.”
He then used the only chance he had to jump into the well and splash mud to blind the beast which was staring at him angrily.
To his surprise, his tactic was successful. The animal left but not without leaving him with broken hands.
The incident left Matipei’s wife, Jackline, dejected as she had hoped for a great evening with her husband who is rarely home.
“I was looking forward to a great evening with my husband. I had prepared to treat him well,” she said.
She further reveals that her husband rarely returns home on Thursdays because he cannot afford to fuel his motorcycle every day.
Consequently, Matipei spends his night under a tree, 26km away from his wife who resides at Maili 46 in Kajiado West constituency.
However, the mother of four is against the move and has severally warned Matipei against sleeping under a tree owing to the dangerous environment.
“We’ve argued severally and asked him to leave the school if the government cannot provide housing,” she said.
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The teacher revealed that his school does not accommodate its teachers despite the distance.
“The school does not have houses for teachers and I also want to save on transport cost,” he said.
The circumstances have limited him to only visit his home twice a week, mainly on Wednesdays and Thursdays.
Following the incident, Kajiado Executive Secretary for Kenya National Union of Teachers, Elly Korinko paid a visit to Matipei at the hospital.
The officer appealed to the Teachers Service Commission to improve the welfare of teachers in the school and send more tutors to the ‘isolated’ school with only two teachers – Matipei and the head teacher.
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